Thursday, May 18, 2006

Time to Go

I had a mental image of my paladin, forged by 59 excellent levels. Unfortunately, the reality of the endgame in WoW proved to be different than my image.

I guess I kept hoping that Blizzard would realize this, and make changes that would make the reality more closely match my image. With the advent of Tier 3 armor, and looking at the Paladin review of 1.9 in hindsight, I believe this hope to be futile. Paladins are as Blizzard envisioned them, and if I do not like that vision, I should reroll or quit.

Accordingly, I have chosen to quit.

World of Warcraft was a spectacular game from levels 1 to 59. It was merely a decent game at level 60. There is a bit too much emphasis on raiding, and very little content for other playstyles. I enjoyed raiding, but there was no variety. All the non-raid content, such as PvP, was seriously flawed in implementation.

Still, I enjoyed my stay in Azeroth quite a bit. I met and played with a lot of good people in the various guilds I was part of.

This was really the first MMO that I spent time with, and it was a fun experience. Though next time, I seriously doubt I will pick a hybrid, or jack-of-all-trades, class. It seems like far less hassle to pick a specialist class.

I almost quit about a year ago, but stayed because I and my best freind were "duoing" all the content with mage and priest alts. That's when i realized how much more fun this game is when you are not gimped as a paladin.

Now we are in a casual raiding guild, and we've gone from raid noobs (the whole guild, that is) to most of MC on farm status and 2 Onyxia kills.

If you haven't tried out the other classes, it might rekindle your interest in the game. I cringe at the thought of being in a raiding guild with a paladin.

I think friends and the guild you're in really are what make the game.

I got bored and aggravated with my 60 rogue and quit for about a month. I eventually came back with an alt priest.

I switched guilds a few times. Now for both characters I'm in small guilds that are part of alliances of other small guilds. All of us are older and not obsessed with getting loot, so there's really no ninjaing or complaining or drama. some of them are hitting ZG now. I finally enjoy the game again.

heh, i just realized, i enjoy the game because "getting ahead", i.e. playing the game/raiding, is not as important to me or the people I play with anymore as just hanging out online is.

The thing is that I think paladins are *very* close to being correct. We really need only a few small changes (2, in my view) to make us work properly, in line with vision that I think most paladins have (at least, the non-pure-healbot ones).

But instead Blizzard chooses to shuffle talents and make our Tier set healbot armor (especially after the awesomeness that was Judgement).